c/o ACE Events – Accountancy Europe
Avenue d’Auderghem 22, B-1040, Brussels
Friday 1st December 2023, 09.15-16.20
hybrid format (in-person and alive streaming)

INTANGIBLES: BACK TO THE FUTURE?
With this International biennial Conference series, WICI Europe, the regional jurisdiction of the Global International Association WICI (World Intangible Capitals Initiative), aims to investigate the central importance of intangibles and the associated information for the long-term, inclusive and balanced growth of European companies, markets and regions; in so doing, the event series intends to relaunch and foster at the policy level the crucial issues, dynamics and reflections linked to these “special” resources for the management, development and growth of a knowledge-based, digital, sustainable and inclusive global economy.

Since many years, academics and other commentators have expressed their concern that the current financial reporting model largely “hides” the contribution that the most important intangibles – especially if internally generated – make to both business performance and value creation. In this vein, several observers believe that financial reporting today does not fully reflect the real strengths of a company, its sources of competitiveness, and its capacity to create long-term value as well as its sustainability over time. And yet the pervasiveness and transversal nature as well as the elusiveness of these resources make it difficult to manage and measure them in a coherent and holistic way at organizational, industry and macro levels.

On the other hand, in this crucial moment for the promotion of the sustainable behaviour of companies, especially in the European Union, it is to be noted that the disclosure on intangibles is an integral part of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) (new addition to art. 19(1) of the 2013 Accounting Directive). In this respect, the EU is going to be the first economically advanced region of the world to mandate the disclosure of sustainability- and non-sustainability-related intangibles in the company reporting system.

Furthermore, as pointed out in a 2021 joint WICI-Value Reporting Foundation position paper, some SDGs (growth; decent work; responsible production) cannot be achieved without the contribution of intangibles. In other words, there seems to be no contradiction between pursuing corporate sustainability and developing and disclosing intangible capitals (human, social-relational, and organizational-intellectual). Indeed, the two are the pillars of a new economic and financial system and of an innovative way to carry out business and corporate governance activity.
After the successful events held in Paris (2015), Frankfurt (2017), and Brussels (2019), and a pause due to the pandemic crisis, the objective of this hybrid format Conference is to engage with European and international institutions and a diversity of stakeholders interested in contributing, from a policy perspective, towards a better understanding, measurement, reporting and management of intangibles, thus providing new inputs and ideas towards these crucial reporting issues for the future.

FOR CONFERENCE REGISTRATION CLICK ON ONE OF THE FOLLOWING LINKS:
In-person participation in Brussels: link

Online participation: link

Participation is free of charge, but previous online registration is requested